Don’t Settle for Less: Why High Standards Matter

Back in 2006, there was a film called Idiocracy. 

I have no idea what its box office stats were, how much money it made, or what other people thought of it. 

I know that I have seen it exactly two times on video: once, when I rented it from Blockbuster (yep, I just separated my reading audience into those who know and those who don’t…It’s ok; both of you can keep reading and I promise it’ll make sense either way), and the second time, when I sat my husband down and made him watch it so he would understand my references every time I rolled my eyes and said, “Idiocracy!”

The film was made by Mike Judge, the same person responsible for Beavis and Butthead. So that alone should give you some context when I tell you that the movie is very, VERY crude (not normally my “cup of tea”…but this is one instance in which the crudeness is literally the point of the entire satire).

The basic premise is that one very average woman and one very average man end up cryo-frozen and wake up 500 years in the future. At that point, society and humanity have devolved so much that these two are now the smartest people on Earth, and end up having to basically save the world from starvation based on their “genius” knowledge of the fact that plants need water to live. There’s too much to go into here in detail, but some of the more relevant pieces are that society (even those in power) is pretty much illiterate, and almost entirely focused on sex and bathroom humor. It’s not a movie I would let my kids watch, but oh, the number of times over the past 15 years that I have wondered how Mike Judge feels about his own fulfilled prophecies…it’s either sad, or shocking, or sickening. I’m not sure which. Maybe all three. 

Either way, I shake my head at the real-life headlines of our day and mutter “Idiocracy…” so often that it’s a little scary!

I could easily go down several rabbit-holes of political discourse at this point, but that’s not what I’m here to do. 

What does this have to do with teaching?  We are the gatekeepers of standards in our classroom: what is acceptable, and what is not. Beyond and separate even from state or testing standards, our personal standards in the classroom matter…quite a bit.

Generational Gaps: When the bar keeps getting lower

How many times have kids in your class read a classical piece of literature (that could be its own rabbit hole question right there…) and asked you: 

“Did they actually talk like this back then? Why?” 

“Why did they have to be so complicated? Why not just say what they mean?” 

“Why do I have to read this? I’m never going to use it!”

OK, so here are all the unfiltered thoughts that run through my mind in response:

1. Where’s your love of literature? I LOVE words: GOOD vocabulary words, unusual words, SYNONYMS and finding out the meaning of new words…Why say something in a direct way when you can use IMAGERY and METAPHORS and SYMBOLISM and LAYERS of meaning?…This IS the fun part!!

2. Do you know what quality of work kids your age USED to do? I think of a young writer like Mary Shelley, who without any formal education, wrote Frankenstein at age 19 in the year 1818. Let’s take a look at a very short representative excerpt:

“My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement; but by some law in my temperature they were turned not towards childish pursuits but to an eager desire to learn, and not to learn all things indiscriminately. I confess that neither the structure of languages, nor the code of governments, nor the politics of various states possessed attractions for me. It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.”

Frankenstein

Yes, it is stunning writing; but I also don’t think she was probably as exceptional amongst her peers as she would have been today. Most of the high school seniors (and some adults) I’ve encountered probably couldn’t even hold a conversation with her if she were to pop in to a class today; they’d be speaking different languages. 

Look at the quality of writing and the educational expectations set in place for students 100 or 200 years ago, and all of a sudden a phrase like “He only had a 6th grade education” might take on an entirely different context…The literacy gap between generations is staggering.

3. I think of my husband, who, in his first couple of years teaching a combined grade 3-4 class, had the students doing science experiments that were typically reserved for high school, and was choosing class reads typically done in middle school. Why?

Because the kids were interested in it, they were capable of doing it to a certain level, and he had a great deal of curricular freedom. As he pointed out to his principal, “If they CAN do it, why not LET them?” 

The main point is that we SHOULD have high standards for our students. 

Trust me, I KNOW it is tempting to buckle under the pressure of COVID learning gaps,

student apathy, 

lack of parental involvement, 

looming state tests, 

administration that wants growth data, 

1,000 new things to learn each year about technology integration/SEL/the acronym of the year, 

not having enough time in the curriculum, 

sheer exhaustion,

and teacher burnout…

I have been there; balancing it all is a struggle!

But I want to encourage you… 

Eye on the prize: Long-term impact

Think of the long-term benefit to your students.

In my senior year of high school, I had to pre-read 2 assigned books over the summer (Beloved and The Bluest Eye…not exactly light beach reading) for my English class. We then spent the first 2 months of school doing nothing but writing ONE paper and revising and revising and revising it…this process taught me more about writing than any other class I’ve ever taken, simply by showing me the power of revision (I completed 8 drafts). This was not the most expedient plan my teacher could have chosen, but looking back, I am sure she did it because she knew it would pay off and actually teach us something. 

I have often wanted to repeat this experience for my own students, but alas, like many of you, I do not have the time luxury of 8 weeks in a semester to spend re-writing one paper. Our curriculum is just too tight. However, there is always a way to adapt a good idea to fit your own context and constraints. It just requires a little thought and creativity.

Adaptation: an Example

One way I’ve adapted this particular example for my own classroom is to identify and isolate specific skills needed in writing, editing, and revising, and spell those out for my students in a structured way. This process can be abbreviated to take just a few days of class time with a short writing response to a reading passage, or expanded to a few weeks within the context of a more complex assignment such as a research paper.

For example: I don’t have 8 weeks to spare, but I do have 1 week @ 90 minutes a day. That’s a decent amount of time to be able to practice writing skills. Here’s how I would break it down for my own class:

• Day 1: give instructions/prompt, brainstorm ideas, fill in graphic organizer

• Day 2: write draft #1

• Day 3: Peer-edit 

• Day 4: Revise draft based on feedback

• Day 5: Peer edit again with new partners and tweak for final draft

My recommendation is to open this up as self-paced work to all students (don’t forget: that means you need to have something waiting in the wings for the fast workers to do, because there’s always at least one!)

Believe in your students: customize their bar height

I have often told my students “I have high expectations of you because I know that you ARE capable of great things. If anyone has low expectations of you, you should take it as an insult.”

One of the things I’ve learned about true equity is that setting a high bar does not mean that everyone’s bar is at the same height.

Here are a few personal stories to illustrate:

Student #1: A Selective Mute Speaks

Student #1 came to me in 9th grade with selective mutism due to some trauma. This meant that he was completely silent most of the time, and only chose to actually speak to his mother and sister, and only at home. He spoke to no one else, ever. His writing and reading level were somewhere around first grade (please don’t get me started on social promotion…) 

At the time, a large component of my course was giving group presentations and reading aloud in class. Clearly, he was not about to do either. The first year, he failed the course. He was placed on my roster the following year on purpose; his counselor said that he felt comfortable with me. Through some extensive work with the school psychiatrist over the course of a year, he made a significant breakthrough: he was able to say a word aloud inside the school building, around the corner where he couldn’t be seen, while standing alone. Huge step for him. 

So what was I going to do with him? 

I needed to know that he was capable of reading aloud: I couldn’t justify to myself passing a student beyond freshman English as “competent” without knowing if he actually was, even at the most basic level. Social promotion ended with my class: I had to hold him to a standard, even if that standard was below that of his peers. For him, this was a high standard to reach. This is true equity and differentiation. 

He felt comfortable enough with me that eventually, we worked out a system. The school gave him a digital camera (this was back before cell phones were a thing)! 

He would take it home, record himself reading a passage from our text aloud, return the camera to me, and I would watch the video when I was alone in my classroom and evaluate his performance that way. 

What this showed me is that if this kid could do it and overcome, so can others.

Student #2: Overcoming Anxiety

Student #2 was another young man in a different 9th grade class who in the first few days of school asked to speak to me privately. In a very respectful manner, he told me about his anxiety surrounding reading aloud in class (and this was back before “anxiety” was an everyday phrase in high schools). He was not trying to shirk the work, but honestly felt totally paralyzed by the prospect of reading aloud. 

I kindly explained to him that I understood how he felt, but asked if he would be willing to work with me. I told him I believed he could do it, even if he didn’t believe it. I asked him to trust me. We made a plan: I promised not to call on him to read a passage that I knew was going to contain challenging vocabulary words, and he would give it his honest effort. By the end of the year, he was reading full paragraphs aloud in class.

Student #3: Learning to be bold

Student #3 was a girl in another 9th grade class who had several mental health issues, anxiety being just one. She wore noise-canceling headphones and many days just put her head down on the desk as a coping mechanism. But there were also days when she was alert and maintaining eye contact with me, engaged as I taught up front. On these days, I would call on her for verbal contributions as often as possible. 

One day in particular stands out in memory: about ¾ through the semester, we were having an open debate as a whole class on a wide range of issues related to our anchor text. There was one topic that she felt very strongly about, and she voiced her opinions clearly, audibly, confidently, and with eloquence, even engaging in back and forth debate with other students. I was so proud of her! 

The key to having high standards is actually believing in your students. (Isn’t this what classic movies like Dangerous Minds and Stand and Deliver taught us?)

Believe in them more than they believe in themselves. Tell them so. 

Mean it, and consistently follow through with opportunities to prove it. 

It’s crucially important to scaffold these opportunities; set them up for success, (as I did with the example student stories above). This way they will gain confidence and build momentum and begin to believe in themselves. As they do, they will eventually become more willing to take risks inherent in learning: risking being wrong, risking making a mistake, risking learning.

So many people in this world have overcome seemingly impossible odds to achieve such great things. And each of them was just a person who was determined to not give up, to endure, to persevere. Your students do not need to be inherently gifted to meet high standards; they need to be persistent. 

Any great achievement begins with one step, followed by another, followed by another. Determination, grit, and steadfastness are not things explicitly on any curriculum, but they are what sets apart great teachers. 

It is what makes us irreplaceable by online learning modules and AI. 

It is what touches the hearts of students and makes them remember us. 

Final Thoughts

The point here is that we as well-meaning, conscientious teachers should maintain high standards for ourselves and our students because it is the right thing to do. 

Someone once said that “integrity is what you do when no one is looking.” So here, that means that even if you are exhausted (because you are), and even if the students are apathetic or resistant (because they are), and even if it’s not technically required by your curriculum, you/WE should always maintain an expectation of excellence. I tell my students that I don’t expect perfection, but I do expect their best effort. 

Because when I show up to work, I am not perfect, but what I CAN do is give it my best. Expect no less from your students.